PEOPLE & PRINT

Compendium Of Demonology & Magic c. 1775.

A selection of pages from an 18th-century demonology book made up of more than 30 exquisite watercolours showing various demon figures, as well as magic and cabbalistic signs.

The full Latin title of Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros, roughly translates to “A rare summary of the entire Magical Art by the most famous Masters of this Art”.

With a title page adorned with skeletons and the warning of Noli me tangere (Do not touch me), one quickly gets a sense of the dark oddities lurking inside its pages.

The bulk of the illustrations depict a varied bestiary of grotesque demonic creatures up to all sorts of appropriately demonic activities, such as chewing down on severed legs, spitting fire and snakes from genitalia, and parading around decapitated heads on sticks.

In addition there seem also to be pictures relating to necromancy, the act of communicating with the dead in order to gain information about, and possibly control, the future.

Written in German and Latin the book has been dated to around 1775, although it seems the unknown author tried to pass it off as an older relic, mentioning the year 1057 in the title page.